A Perelman Cultural Mashup, or: Oh, Those Oscars!

During this year's Oscars, there was so much live blogging it could make you pine for zombies. Not that dead Tweeting would have been an upgrade, there just wasn't quite as much of it. Coverage of any cultural event is best seen through the WWSJPD lens -- what would S.J. Perelman do? He would probably make hay of what we sat through on Oscar's big night, the marriage of art and commerce. After all, if you're going to have art (James Franco) meet commerce, why stop at Anne Hathaway?

2012 curtain rises

The Oscars open with Franco and Snooki rolling on the floor. "Oh Snooki, if you speak in a complete sentence I have pledged to combine it with a Charles Bukowski poem and work it into next year's Oscar monologue.

Producer issues the note, "Try to work it into the fashion trend, "Fleurs de Mauve." Franco doesn't take the note.

"Listening carefully, you seem to be asking me to think through my actions." Snooki answers. "Dangling participle!" the audience shouts, since following teleprompts is now an Oscar qualifier.

"Oh Vanity Fair..." Franco emotes.

"No quoting books," the audience yells, as books have been declared direct competition of movies since the Stick Figure Kindle took off.

Franco gamely tackles a modified William Makepeace Thackeray monologue: "A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute bump, may marry whom she likes."

It worked in rehearsal, but producers noting the Facebook reaction send him the note, "How about if Make Peace is not his middle name?" It's too late. Franco has already begun to cross stitch "I saw the best minds... no, really" on a velvet curtain before he receives an interruption from Snooki.

"Dearest James, if the subprime mortgage market had not broken every rule of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, not to mention the beleaguered Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Michael Lewis could have finished our script without threat of libel. And don't get me started on Sarbanes-Oxley!"

Nobody does.

In fact, the audience grows stone silent as Snooki breaks character, but the ratings day is saved when every Real Housewife shouts, "Fuck" from the risers.

Fortunately for New Orleans, Melissa Leo has trademarked saying Fuck at the Oscars with proceeds going to the city's recovery, making philanthropy the evening's big winner.

The audience, now despairing of winning the Oscar drawing at all, answers with: "F@&k!" They can no longer pronounce the word since, in this economy, the Oscars have veered so deeply into Commerce.

James and Snooki decide that reenacting the verb in question is the best way to correct the situation, behind Franco's cross-stitched Howl. And the world sees half of Art and a quarter of Commerce shortly before the best minds of their generation run for the Hollywood Hills.